Paid, not sure, but I've lurked around here enough to verify the dedication. The mods not only curate and consolidate multiple links (e.g., 3+ things that said Facebook was down this last week), but they also openly communicate what they did.
Dang is paid, which is obviously part of what gives rise to the dedication. And not that the vast majority of HN moderation is not openly communicated. It's things like score adjustment to push certain type of posts lower and boost others which are deemed to not have gotten enough attention.
